"And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear"

Now let me be clear: issues of women’s equality are by no means simply an issue for Islam. In Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia, we have seen Muslim-majority countries elect a woman to lead. Meanwhile, the struggle for women’s equality continues in many aspects of American life, and in countries around the world.

You are crystal clear, Mr. President.Crystal.

This loving father sold his daughters to their husbands, and when they refused to go .....

Using several Facebook accounts and internet forums, jihadi groups have announced a Question & Answer session with German jihadi fighters based in Waziristan, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda stronghold in the Pakistani tribal region.

LAHORE, Pakistan (Morning Star News) – Compliance with an order that only the death sentence can be given to those convicted of insulting Islam’s prophet will further endanger Christians and increase the powers of the Islamic court that issued it, critics said.

While Christians fear that government compliance with the Federal Shariat Court’s (FSC) Dec. 4 order to remove life imprisonment as a punishment for insulting Muhammad could usher in a new era of persecution, some critics say the greater concern is that it could broaden the powers of the controversial court.

Section 295-C of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws calls for either death or life imprisonment for persons convicted of insulting Muhammad. The FSC has given the government a “couple of months” to implement, through parliament, the order to remove life imprisonment as a possible punishment.

Islamic Clerics In Pakistan And India Denounce New Year's And Christmas Celebrations, Members Of Jamaat-e-Islami's Youth Wing Attack New Year's Revelers In Lahore MEMRI

On New Year's Eve, members of the youth wing of Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan attacked revelers in the city of Lahore and smashed cars to protest against New Year's celebrations, while columnists and Islamic clerics in Pakistan and India declared the occasion as un-Islamic, urging youth to refrain from emulating the West on occasions like New Year's and Christmas.

The following are media reports about the New Year celebrations in Pakistan and India:

In Lahore, youth members of Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan attack people celebrating New Year

On December 28, 2011, Shabab-e-Milli, the youth wing of Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan, warned the owners of hotels, guest houses, and private clubs not to organize "immoral programs" on December 31, 2011 to mark the arrival of 2012.

Life sentences for those critical of Islam or offensive to Islam is apparently too soft a punishment, according to these devout holy men. Islamic clerics are demanding death only, in accordance with the sharia.

Anyone telling you the "moderates" (or as I affectionately call them, the unicorns) are moving towards reform in Islam is either hardwired for denial or lying (taqiyya) to you in order to advance Islam.

Reform or reinterpretation is a crime in Islam -- it is the crime of hypocrisy. Also punishable by death.

"Urdu Daily: 150 Barelvi Clerics Ask Pakistani Government To End Option Of Life Sentence For Acts Of Blasphemy, Retain Death Penalty As Only Punishment" MEMRI, December 22, 2013

Sunni Tehreek, a Pakistani religious organization which follows the Barelvi school of Sunni Islam, has called for ending the possibility of life imprisonment in cases of blasphemy in Pakistani laws, meaning that only the death sentence would remain in effect. The following are excerpts from the report:

"150 clerics of the Sunni Tehreek Ulema Board have said that the punishment for blaspheming the prophet is only death sentence; awarding life sentence is against the sharia.

Pakistani newspapers paid rich tributes to Sachin saying "the game of cricket will surely be the poorer without him".

In a video message, Talibanspokesperson Shahidullah Shahid, flanked by two AK-47 wielding masked men, talks about Sachin's farewell to international cricket.

"There is this Indian cricket player Sachin Tendulkar. It was unfortunate to see Pakistani media go to great extent to pay tribute to him," Shahid said in the video message.

"On the other hand, it was sad to know same Pakistani media badly criticized captain Misbah-ul-Haq. No matter how good Tendulkar is, don't praise him because he is Indian. No matter how bad Misbah-ul-Haq plays, he should be praised because he is a Pakistani," the video shows the Taliban spokesperson as saying.

The Pakistan media had extensively covered Tendulkar and his farewell speech was covered live. Pakistan media praised Tendulkar after he retired from the game on November 16.

Newspapers paid rich tributes to Sachin saying "the game of cricket will surely be the poorer without him".

Dawn wrote Tendulakar's retirement marks the end of a truly memorable career that spanned nearly a quarter of a century.

Rated by critics and contemporaries as arguably the greatest postwar batsman to have played the game, Tendulkar continued to rewrite the record books with his brilliant batting skills since making his debut against Pakistan in Karachi way back in 1989, it had said.

An outlawed extremist organisation, Jamat-ul-Dawa, issues a fatwa against Adnan Masih. As a result of a misunderstanding, the Christian man has been accused of insulting Muhammad and Islam. As police investigates, the clergyman and his family are under their protection. A local priest notes that this is "the third case of persecution against Christians based on the blasphemy law in just two months."

Lahore (AsiaNews) - Adnan Masih, a Christian clergyman in Lahore, has been accused of insulting the Prophet Muhammad. After charges were laid against him, an Islamic extremist group began making death threats. The prosecutor in charge of the case ordered police to launch a thorough investigation, as well as protect the accused and his family until the matter is cleared up. A radical organisation, Jamat-ul-Dawa, said however that it could kill the man "even if he is in custody."

The story began on 7 October with a misunderstanding. Adnan Masih was replacing his brother at an eyeglass store, the Diamond Glass, where the latter worked. Whilst there, the Christian clergyman saw a book on a shelf by a Muslim leader who heads an outlawed extremist organisation, the Jamat-ul-Dawa. He noted errors in the book about the Bible and penned corrections in it. He then left the store.

The next day Abid Mehmood, a colleague of his brother, filed a complaint against Masih at a police station, accusing him of blasphemy (under Article 295, sections A, B and C of the Pakistan Penal Code). When he heard about the complaint against him, the Christian man denied the accusations.

However, he became the subject of death threats from Jamat-ul-Dawa and eventually a fatwa. Fearing for himself and his loved ones, on 8 November, he turned himself in to local police, asking for protection.

"We're scared," family members said. "Adnan has not written anything against Islam. He only corrected some things about Jesus Christ."

"This is the third case of persecution against Christians based on the blasphemy law in just two months," Fr Arshed John, from the Diocese of Lahore, told AsiaNews. "I hope the police is able to protect him. I call on everyone, without distinction of religion, to pray for this man and his family. "

It's not the mass slaughter of non-Muslims that's the problem, it's the reporting on it; it's websites like mine and Robert Spencer's that publish these monstrous acts of jihad (stories that the media obediently censors) that are the problem, according to the Islamic supremacists and their media lapdogs and political pawns.

“The unabated violence in the city’s volatile
Lyari neighbourhood has forced its entire Christian community to move to
safer areas The Express Tribune has learnt.

Threats, killings, interferences in personal matters, drugs,
extortion and rape of young girls were some of the reasons that
compelled the out-migration from one of the oldest parts of Lyari,
called Slaughter House.

Around 600 houses in Slaughter House, which comprises 22 buildings,
was established in 1916 for the sanitary workers of the Karachi
Metropolitan Corporation (KMC). It now stands deserted as its occupants
were forced out by a group of gangsters, who were forcing them to join
their ranks against its rival group or leave the compound forever. The
residents, who were mostly employees of the KMC, were paying a monthly
rent of Rs450 to the department.

These last occupants of Slaughter House were the fourth generation of
the earliest KMC workers. Unfortunately, the fifth generation will have
to find homes in various parts of the city, including Akhtar Colony,
Kashmir Colony, Azam Basti, Azam Town, Korangi, Narain Pura, Essa Nagri,
Zia Colony, Nasir Colony, Qayyumabad and Baldia Town.

Recently, the
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) released a fatwa that approves death for
television hosts, journalists, analysts and media personalities whose acts and
views are deemed by the Taliban to be against Islamic shari'a. The fatwa was
authored by a group of Ulema and Muftis (clerics and those qualified to issue
fatwas) associated with the TTP a year ago and reissued. The Council of
Pakistan Newspaper Editors criticized the fatwa and expressed its resolve to
continue informing facts to the general public despite unfavorable
circumstances and threats.

On November 7, 2013, Maulana Fazlullah was named the new
emir of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), succeeding Hakimullah Mehsud who was
killed in a U.S. drone strike a week ago on November 1. TTP spokesman
Shahidullah Shahid, who announced the appointment of Maulana Fazlullah,
declared that the new TTP emir has rejected any peace talks with the Pakistani
government. Maulana Fazlullah has been the TTP emir for the Malakand region,
which includes the Swat district of Pakistan. Shahid also announced the
appointment of Sheikh Khalid Haqqani, until recently the TTP's emir for Swabi
district, as the new deputy emir of the TTP.

Demonstrations in support of Islamic supremacism and the global jihad. This is war, the worldwide war against freedom and individual rights.

Hundreds of religious demonstrators rallied across Pakistan on Friday to
protest against the United States' use of drone strikes in the country.
Protests were held in the cities of Lahore and Karachi, as well as the
capital Islamabad, and were led by Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, head of
Pakistan's hardline Jamaat-ud-Dawa party.

It's not just Muslim groups that are protesting against the taking out of the jihad mastermind Hakimullah Mehsud; it's the government. Once again, reality gives proof the lie of "just a couple of fanatics," "just a few extremists," and the ever popular "this has nothing to do with Islam."

Pakistan has summoned the US ambassador to protest over Friday's drone strike that killed Mehsud. The country's foreign minister, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, said the strike
on the local Taliban leader "is not just the killing of one person, it's
the death of all peace efforts." (source: BBC)

Let me refresh your memory. Hakimullah Mehsud was not only behind the attempted bombing in NY's Times Square, but he was behind the homicide bombing that killed eight CIA officers and severely wounded others.

And taking him out is "the death of all peace efforts"? Peace = surrender to Islam.

Hakimullah Mehsud was taken out today. Mehsud was behind the attempted bombing in Times Square in NYC. And Mehsud was on the FBI's
most-wanted terrorist list, with a $5 million reward for
information leading to his capture, and has been near the top of the CIA
Counterterrorism Center's most wanted list for his role in the December
2009 suicide bombing that killed seven Americans -- CIA officers and
their security detail -- at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost,
Afghanistan. It was one of the darkest days in the Agency’s 62-year history.

Today a US drone killed him. I love that. Looks like he won't be witnessing "the map of the Greater Islamic Caliphate." Let's hope his 72 virgins are all cleaned, scrubbed and intact in anticipation of his arrival. Inshallah.

In his annual Eid Al-Adha message, which was recently
released by a jihadi internet forum, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) emir
Hakimullah Mehsud urges Muslim youth to join the mujahideen and says that very
soon the map of a global Islamic caliphate will be visible before the world.

For some reason, Eid Al-Fitr and Eid Al-Adha messages
released by Mehsud in recent years have always appeared a few days after the
occasion. In the message, the TTP emir also presents a somewhat unconditional
offer of talks with the Pakistani government if the U.S. stops the drone
strikes, and notes that these strikes are being carried out with the consent of
the Pakistani military and its Inter-Services Intelligence.

The chilling words of the Muslim Mumbai killers recorded during their murder spree: "Keep killing, keep killing, the dogs.' "Insh'Allah" 'The manner of your death will instill fear in the unbelievers. This is a battle between Islam and the unbelievers"

On November 26,
2008, jihadists staged 11 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks
across Mumbai, killing 164 people and wounding at least 308. The carnage
was unimaginable, the torture unspeakable.

"This is a struggle between Islam and Unbelievers, We are the People God has Chosen to Defend Against the Unbelievers" (here)

The Jews were targeted first (Islamic antisemitism is a basic tenet
in Islam). According to radio transmissions picked up by Indian
intelligence, the
attackers were "told by their handlers in Pakistan that the lives of
Jews were worth 50 times those of non-Jews."

The once-notorious British playboy Imran Khan and now rising Pakistani politican has been in contact with the monster mastermind of the Mumbai jihad. Imran Khan is the moderate Muslim archetype that the West believes is "the answer." How does the left reconcile Imran Khan, the moderate, hotshot,
womanizing fashionista's fave Muslim? This is their stubborn delusion, no matter how improbable or
illogical -- but reality.

Photo: Imran Khan with now ex-wife Jemina Goldsmith, heiress and daughter of Sir James Goldsmith. Jemima went to extraordinary lengths to make the marriage work, moving to Pakistan and converting to Islam.

Khan, once the dahlink of the fashionista, glitterati, cognescenti, is
now advancing the sharia (in its most strict and repressive form) in
Pakistan, meeting with hardcore Muslim killers, while simultaneously advancing his political fortunes.

Lahore: Pakistani politician and former cricketer Imran Khan has
justified contact with the banned Jamat-ud-Dawa and its leader Hafiz
Saeed, who is alleged to be the mastermind behind the 26/11 attacks.

The
Jamaat-ud-Dawa, founded by Hafiz Saeed and seen as a front for
Laskhar-e-Taiba, is blamed for the three-day carnage in Mumbai in 2008
that killed 166 people.

In an exclusive interview with NDTV, Mr
Khan has defended his dealings with Hafiz Saeed, arguing that political
parties do not boycott people and it's his right to see whoever he think
he needs to as a politician.

This, of course, is reasonable. It is the views of myself and my colleagues who oppose the most vicious and brutal ideology on the planet, the sharia, that are the problem. We are extreme. We are intolerant. Obama say, "respect it!" Obama say, "stand down!"

That's the way it goes down in a sharia-complaint Western culture.

The victims were accompanied by brothers and
husbands who were waiting in the parking area while they went shopping.

"A woman may not leave the city without her husband or a
member of her unmarriageable kin accompanying her, unless the journey is
obligatory, like the hajj. It is unlawful for her to travel otherwise,
and unlawful for her husband to allow her to." -- 'Umdat al-Salik m10.3

The Sahiwal district police officer has announced a
Rs200,000 cash prize for anyone who helps the police arrest the people
who have been stabbing women in shopping areas.

On Saturday, DPO Syed Khurram Ali had suspended Cheechawatni Station
House Officer Abid Hussain from service for failing to arrest the gang
members. The SHO had been given four days to track the suspects.

The DPO said that a criminal gang had recently surfaced in
Cheechawatni. He said the gang members stabbed women “for leaving their
houses after sunset”. He said most of the women were attacked in
shopping areas.

Police said at least 25 cases had been reported in October so far. In
most cases, they said, the victims were accompanied by brothers and
husbands waiting in the parking area while they went shopping.

Dr Asim Nawaz at the tehsil headquarters hospital told The Express
Tribune that two to three women were being brought to the hospital every
day since October 6. He said most of them had been stabbed in the
shoulders, back and arms. Some had also been attacked on their faces.

He said four women were brought to the hospital on Saturday. Three of
them were referred to the district headquarters hospital in Sahiwal.

One of the injured woman, who did not want to disclose her identity,
told The Express Tribune that a masked man stopped her and asked why she
was out in the market unaccompanied. She said she ignored him and
walked away but he stabbed her in the shoulder.

The DPO said the incidents had caused alarm among residents, who were
not allowing their women to leave home or go shopping on their own.

He said they had also led to low attendance at girls’ schools and
colleges. He said some working women had requested the police for
deployment at major roads.

He said most cases had been reported from Ahmed Nagar, Ali Town,
Block No 10, Block No 19, Kamalia Road, and Gyarawala Mor. He said the
victims had not been robbed.

He said the injured women had told police that the assailants had told them that they were not allowed to leave their homes and that “it was against the Sharia law for women to go shopping”.

Morning Star News – “Police and a banned Islamic extremist group in
Lahore, Pakistan are searching for a young Christian accused of
blasphemy – with the extremist group calling for his death – after he
sought to correct misconceptions about Christianity in a Muslim book,
sources said.

Sources close to Adnan Masih, 26, said he believes that if he turns
himself in, he will be killed by either the Islamic extremist Jamaat ud
Dawa (JuD) or the Pakistani judicial system, which makes blasphemy
against Islam’s prophet punishable by death. They said Masih denies
having written anything against Islam or its prophet, Muhammad, when he
scribbled in a Muslim book he found in a glassworks shop where his
brother works.

His brother, Irfan Masih, was busy elsewhere that day, Oct. 7, and
asked him to fill in for him at the shop. Masih, who has a master’s in
English and trained as a pastor at a United Pentecostal seminary, became
bored and began going through books in a desk drawer, where he noticed
one entitled, ‘I Asked the Bible Why Korans Were Burnt [in Urdu, ‘Mein
ney Bible sey poocha Quran kyun jaley’],’ sources said.

"Then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captive and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush" Quran (9:5)

The textbooks in Pakistan reflect true Islamic texts and teachings. Monstrous. Worse, exposing it, denouncing it, is islamophobia, blasphemy, a crime. But the teachings are not. And that view is prevalent in the West as well. This is the low state of world.

Textbooks In Pakistani Government Schools Teaching Hate Against Christians And Hindus, Jihad And Martyrdom To Young Students By: Tufail Ahmad* MEMRI via ivarfjeld

Cover page of Urdu for Grade 2 in Punjab province

Introduction

This paper examines the role of school textbooks in
promoting hate against religious minorities in Pakistan. On September
22, 2013, more than 80 Christians were killed and hundreds wounded when
two Taliban suicide bombers targeted worshippers as they were leaving
after a Sunday mass at the 130-year old All Saints' church in Peshawar,
the capital of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.[1]
Imran Khan, the leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party
which governs the province, slammed the attackers but in the same breath
asked: "why do terrorist attacks occur when dialogue is on the table?" –
the insinuation being that foreign forces planned the attack to
sabotage Pakistan's peace negotiations with the Tehreek-e-Taliban
Pakistan (TTP).[2]

Jundul Hafsa, a militant outfit which functions as
part of the Hakimullah Mehsud-led TTP, claimed responsibility for the
attack. Ahmad Marwat, the group's spokesman, said the following about
Christians: "They are the enemies of Islam; therefore we target them...
We will continue our attacks on non-Muslims on Pakistani land."[3] There are 200,000 Christians in the province and of them 70,000 live in Peshawar.[4] Such hate against Christians is the result of decades of teachings in government-run schools across Pakistan.

In Pakistan, where Islamist groups are launching
regular attacks against non-Muslim Pakistanis like Christians and Hindus
as well as some sects of Muslims such as Shi'ites and Ahmadi Muslims,
whom they do not consider to be real Muslims, the official and
unofficial media, government leaders and religious scholars have
legitimized hate against religious minorities, with the term "minority"
itself having come to be seen in a pejorative context. As a result of
such legitimization of hate through school textbooks, government
policies, sermons in mosques and religious congregations, there is
growing persecution of Pakistani Christians, Hindus, Shias and Ahmadi
Muslims. In September 2012, the Middle East Media Research Institute
(MEMRI) released a paper by this author, cataloguing Islamist and jihadi
attacks against these minority groups and underlining the need to put
Pakistan on international genocide watch.[5]

After the September 22 church attack, senior
Pakistani journalist Aamer Ahmed Khan commented on the Pakistani elite's
silence in condemning such attacks on minorities in unequivocal terms,
stating: "This silence of our ruling elite is itself the real
Talibanism."[6]
In Pakistan, the federal government and the provincial government
headed by Imran Khan's party in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are engaged in talks
with the Taliban. Their ministers are publicly seen as silent in their
criticism of jihadi groups and the TTP. In turn, the Taliban are
emboldened. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the PTI-led government has recently
been in the news for initiating policies to restore jihadi lessons in
school textbooks which were removed as part of reforms by the previous
government of the secular Awami National Party (ANP). "What kind of
sovereignty, freedom, and Islamic values are these when Islamic
teachings, jihad, and national heroes are removed from textbooks? Jihad
is part of our faith. We will not back down (from our decision)," Shah
Farman, the information minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, told reporters
on August 21, 2013.[7]

Pakistani Journalist Maheen
Usmani: "14-Year-Old Students Of Pakistan Studies Are Being Taught: 'One
Of The Reasons For The Downfall Of The Muslims... Was The Lack Of The
Spirit Of jihad'"; "13-Year-Olds Are Instructed: 'In Islam, Jihad Is
Very Important'"

Throughout Pakistan's history, since its creation
in 1947, hate speech against non-Muslims has been a normal phenomenon in
Pakistani society. In August-September 2013, a Lahore Grammar School
received backlash for introducing a supplementary course titled
"Comparative Religion" which was designed to "educate about Islam,
Christianity, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism and Hinduism."[8]
A television channel played its part in inciting popular opinion
against the school. According to a report, "The course received
considerable backlash, gaining mainstream attention following an episode
of a talk show aired on ARY News, Khara Sach, on
September 16, 2013. In the episode, hosted by [television] anchor
Mubasher Luqman, the school was falsely accused of attempting to convert
students to other religions..."[9]

Days after Army succeeded in flushing out Pakistani infiltrators from
Jammu & Kashmir’s Keran sector after a 14-day long operation, a top
Army officer has claimed that Jamat ud Dawa chief and mastermind of
26/11 terror attacks Hafiz Mohammed Saeed was provoking terrorists in
Pakistan-occupied Kashmir to infiltrate into the State and ceasefire
violations are aimed at abetting infiltration of the terrorists.

“There have been reports that Lashkar-e-Tayyeba and Jamat ud Dawa
(JuD) chief Hafiz Sayeed and his associates were provoking the
terrorists in PoK to infiltrate into Jammu and Kashmir and indulge in
terror activities and sabotage peace,” General Officer Commanding 16
Corps, Lieutenant General DS Hooda told reporters on the sidelines of a
function in Rajouri on Tuesday.

“A large number of terrorists are planning to infiltrate into the
State from across the LoC to keep terrorism alive — they (the
terrorists) wouldn’t succeed in their plans,” he said.

There are 30 to 40 terror camps operating on the other side of the border, Hooda said.

The ceasefire violations and firing from across the border is aimed to abet infiltration of the jihadis, he said.